Mixels Wiki:Creative Corner/Mixels (1997 film)
Mixels is a 1997 animated film adaption of The Mixels Show produced by Warner Bros. Animation. It was released in the United States on May 30, 1997. Synopsis Warner Bros. The Mixels are out on an adventure so long that it's too big for the small screen! Rotten Tomatoes A mixel is chosen to appear on a game show and he and his friends deal with the hijinks and pitfalls that occur on the road to and in New York. Movie Summary After returning from his mailbox, Teslo discovers that his brothers disapprove of Teslo's appearance on the fictional game show $100,000 Questions, and thus will not fund the trip. Teslo anyway brings out his Real-World Machine. Dribbal unexpectedly surprises him once he comes out of the Machine and gives him-of all things-five free passes to stay at the Plaza Hotel in New York City. The next day, Flain, Flurr, Lunk, Torts, Scorpi, Meltus, Chilbo, Snoof, Dribbal and Slusho arrive at Teslo's House and the eleven all pack into the Machine-only to end up at a used-car store in Los Angeles instead due to a malfunction. They take two cars (Teslo, Flurr, Scorpi, Snoof and Slusho in one and Flain, Lunk, Torts, Meltus, Chilbo and Dribbal in the other) and begin packing them for the trip to New York City and that's when the troubles begin. As they race down a back road in the Rocky Mountains in Colorado, Teslo's group is pulled over by a local sheriff. The sheriff arrests them under suspicion of theft. Meanwhile, on another back road on the Utah side of the Mountains, Flain's group burns out it's radiator. Finally, a man by the name of Brian Greene appears walking down the road. He tells them that he was on his way to New York himself. He fixes the fan belt by using Torts' antenna pricker and replenishes the radiator with Flain's drinking water. In return, he asks to be driven to New York City. Flain's group gets to New York first the next day. Meanwhile, Teslo's group gets booked, photographed and thrown into a jail cell with a New Age Hippie named Arturo, and a biker/poet named Jason. Finally the sheriff decides that the guys aren't suspects when he learns that the stolen Bronco was found and the real culprits were arrested in Denver. But the Sheriff extorts all of the money the group is carrying to let them out of the jail. Teslo's group arrives twelve hours after Flain's group and the two groups reunite later that night. The next morning, Teslo's group attempt to get work as food vendors at Times Square, only to get fired for eating the product and earn no money. At the hotel's restaurant, Flurr, Snoof and Slusho run into Carl Klein; who overhears their money problem and offers them jobs as male escorts. The next morning, Carl teaches Flurr, Snoof and Slusho as escorts at his office, making Flurr late for Teslo's meeting with the producers of $100,000 Questions, angering Teslo. That evening, Snoof receives a note to take on his first assignment: "a heavyset, southern woman named Ernestine." Meanwhile, Flurr and Slusho are forced to dine with Teslo, Lunk, Meltus and Dribbal at the Windows on the World at the World Trade Center while they dine at the same time with their escort: a French woman named Laurie. But Teslo soon figures out what's going on. After Teslo follows Flurr and Slusho to Laurie's table, they all decide to head back to the Plaza Hotel, coincidentally when Snoof had just entered the restaurant with Ernestine. Flurr and Slusho go to Teslo's room at the Plaza Hotel to talk the incident over. Meanwhile, back at the restaurant, a mobster, Rene, arrives and he and his bodyguards kidnap Snoof and take him back to the hotel, shocking Ernestine. Teslo, Flurr, Scorpi, Snoof and Slusho hear about Rene and take off in the Bronco. Rene and his bodyguards take off in a taxi and Flain, Lunk, Torts, Meltus, Chilbo and Dribbal take off in their car. A car chase through the streets of New York in the dark night ensues. Teslo's group does not make it far down Fifth Avenue and abandons their Bronco in a traffic jam in front of the New York Public Library. After finding the library doors locked, luckily enough, the jam clears and they run back into their Bronco, only to get stopped by another traffic jam at the end of West Broadway near the Twin Towers. Teslo's group escapes by hiding out in a clothing store in the South Tower by hiding behind mannequins. But out in the plaza, the five are spotted by the thugs who chase them into a dance party in the North Tower, only to be captured by the thugs and Flain's group who stumbles by. They return to the Plaza Hotel where they fail to talk their way to freedom. But Flurr suddenly comes up with a solution: tie the thugs together with rope attached to his mouth and then splash the three into the East River. This turns out to be successful, as he tells Teslo and Slusho about it when he returns. After everything is resolved, the gang immediately sets off to the studio in which $100,000 Questions is taped. Teslo goes backstage while the rest of the gang sits in the audience. Teslo then finds out that $100,000 Questions is hosted by Carl Klein! Back on Planet Mixel, the rest of the Mixels are tuning in to $100,000 Questions. Eventually, Teslo's turn arrives. When asked about whether or not one is safer from lightning on high terrain, a montage of Mountain City exterior scenes from The Mixels Show is shown as Teslo thinks of the answer. Teslo then answers "yes," which is the incorrect answer. Everyone lets out a huge scream; besides it being a relatively simple question, Teslo himself lives on high terrain. However, the Nixels, who are watching the show from a satellite, cheer on. Tearful, the gang returns to their respective tribal homes, with no one there to greet them. Teslo, after entering his home again, is so unhappy that he tells his brothers that "it's the end of an era." But after he thinks for a moment, he goes to Mixel Park, reuniting with the other Mixels, including all of the ones that went along with him on the trip, and the screen fades to the credits. Characters Major *Flain *Teslo *Flurr *Lunk *Torts *Scorpi *Meltus *Chilbo *Snoof *Dribbal *Slusho Minor *Vulk *Zaptor *Volectro *Slumbo *Glurt *Footi *Hoogi *Burnard *Flamzer *Nixels *King Nixel *Major Nixel Cameos *Zorch *Krader *Seismo *Shuff *Kraw *Tentro *Balk *Glomp *Krog *Gurggle Production Information Planning began as early as 1994, that year, David P. Smith began planning a New York-set project for ''Codename Special'', but Fox rejected the idea. Smith, along with his co-producers, reworked the idea into feature-film length, resulting in the Mixels film. Inspiration for the film came primarily from [http://peanuts.wikia.com/wiki/A_Boy_Named_Charlie_Brown A Boy Named Charlie Brown] (1969) and ''Saved by the Bell: Wedding in Las Vegas'' (1994), as well as trips made by the crew to New York in February and March of 1996. The first public announcement of the film came in the anniversary special Mixels at 35: The Anniversary Story, which aired in January 1996 on The WB. Animation for the film began in April 1996. Trivia *The hit Jermaine Jackson song "Let's Get Serious" was featured in the opening titles instead of the regular The Mixels Show theme song and featured shots of New York City at night. *''$100,000 Questions'' inspired television producer Michael Davies, who saw Mixels in a New York City theater, to attempt to revive ''The $64,000 Question'' in 1999 before shelving that in favor of bringing [[Wikipedia:Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?|''Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?]] (which itself was also inspired by ''$100,000 Questions) to the United States. *In September 1999, the film was cut up into four parts and aired as four separate episodes of The Mixels Show as the series finale. All four parts received some cuts in order to trim them down to 22 minutes without commercials. *As the World Trade Center is the setting of several scenes and appears in the background of a few others, the film was temporarily pulled from rotation on Nickelodeon and some syndication providers following the September 11, 2001 attacks as David P. Smith felt that "there was no need to air the film on television in the wake of such a terrible tragedy of this magnitude." *The film was produced in 1996. *This is the first of any media to use the current solid yellow version of the Mixels logo. Prior to then, a solid orange was used instead. This change was probably made to reduce eye strain among some people. Allusions *'Saved by the Bell -' In addition to being based off of the TV film ''Saved by the Bell: Wedding in Las Vegas'', a subway advertisement features a salesman called Zack Turtle, which is a direct reference to the original series. *'Ghostbusters -' During the car chase, the cars pass by a fire station repurposed into the headquarters of the fictional company Ghost Terminators, whose only known employee is Harold Beakman, who is voiced by Flain's voice actor, Harold Ramis, who portrayed Egon Spengler in the ''Ghostbusters'' films, centered on the eponymous service that Ghost Terminators spoofs. *'Earthbound -' Arturo resembles and has a personality similar to the New Age Retro Hippie, an enemy from the 1995 SNES game Earthbound (also known as Mother 2). Memorable Quotes Gallery For the gallery of '''Mixels (1997 film)', see here.'' Voice Cast *Carlos Alazraqui - Torts *Jess Harnell - Burnard, Meltus, Shuff, Vulk, Zaptor *Harold Ramis - Dribbal, Flain, Kraw, Slumbo, Tentro, Teslo, Harold Beakman *Matt Taylor - Glomp, Hoogi *Sigourney Weaver - Scorpi *Frank Welker - Chilbo, Flamzer, Flurr, Footi, Glurt, Krader, King Nixel, Krog, Major Nixel, Nixels, Slusho, Snoof, Volectro, Zorch, Additional Voices *Billy West - Balk, Lunk